"How very thoughtless and selfish in Cousin Horace to bring that fellow along," Mildred said to her mother.
"No, my dear, not when we consider that they have always been together and neither would know very well how to do without the other. I was the thoughtless one not to remember that and expect John."
"Always together, mother?"
"Yes; they are nearly the same age—John a few months older than his young master—and were playfellows in infancy.
"John's mother was Horace's 'mammy' as the children down south call their nurses; and I think loved her white nursling even better than her own children.
"John's affection for Horace is probably as great, and it would come near breaking his heart to be separated from him."
Horace Dinsmore had paid a visit to Lansdale the year before the removal of the Keiths to Indiana. The impression he had then made upon his young cousins was not at all favorable; he was silent, morose and seemed to take little or no interest in anybody or anything.
"He is not like himself," Mrs. Keith had said to Aunt Wealthy again and again; "he is in trouble, some great sorrow has come to him."
But they did not succeed in winning his confidence; he rejected their sympathy, locked up his secret in his own bosom, and left them as sad and moody as when he came.